Staff Software Engineer

Paul Murphy Associates; Chicago (IL); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Paul Murphy Associates LLC in Chicago or New York is seeking a technical leader to drive high-performance, low-latency exchange and clearing systems. You will architect, implement, and optimize core infrastructure for microsecond-precision at scale, with on-call involvement and production reliability.

The role demands strong Java expertise, concurrency mastery, and hands-on work with Aeron, Hydra, Kafka, and PostgreSQL within distributed architectures, including FIX protocols and real-time

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field.
• 5–8+ years in professional software engineering building high-performance distributed systems.
• Strong Java proficiency, concurrency, memory management, JVM behavior, performance optimization.
• Experience with REST and WebSocket APIs, FIX protocol, and low-latency environments.
• Hands-on with micro-services, Kafka and relational databases (PostgreSQL).
• Experience with derivative contracts (futures, options) and financial markets is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Architect, implement, and maintain core exchange and clearing infrastructure with high performance.
• Provide technical leadership and hands-on contributions to system design, patterns, and data architectures.
• Use Aeron and Hydra to build ultra-low-latency, high-throughput messaging architectures.
• Design storage/retrieval for market data, trade history, positions, and audit trails.
• Collaborate with Product and stakeholders to design technical solutions for new financial products.
• Participate in on-call rotations and respond to production incidents requiring deep troubleshooting.

Skills

Java concurrency

JVM performance

REST APIs

WebSocket APIs

FIX protocol

Low-latency systems

Distributed systems

High-throughput messaging

Reliability in production

Microservices

Kafka

PostgreSQL

DERIVATIVES familiarity

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/SE or related

Tools

Aeron

Hydra

Kafka

PostgreSQL

Job description

Location: Chicago, IL or New York, NY – Hybrid

Full-time

You will help drive the evolution of low-latency, high-throughput applications, focusing on exchange and clearing systems. This includes expanding the platform's features, ensuring its scalability, and meticulously maintaining performance.

This role is designed for a technical leader who thrives on solving the “hard problems” in financial markets, has deep expertise in low-latency systems, and can help architect financial technology that operates with microsecond precision at scale, while maintaining the highest standards of financial integrity.

Responsibilities

• Help architect, implement, and maintain the core exchange and clearing infrastructure, ensuring the system is performant, scalable, and ultra-reliable.
• Provide technical leadership and hands-on contributions to system design patterns, frameworks, protocols, and data architectures, ensuring they meet the requirements for performance, reliability, correctness, and maintainability.
• Utilize Aeron and Hydra frameworks to build ultra-low-latency and high-throughput messaging architectures that power the core of their infrastructure.
• Handle massive data volumes efficiently, designing storage and retrieval patterns for market data, trade history, positions, and audit trails.
• Collaborate with the Product team and other stakeholders to design technical solutions for new, innovative financial products.
• Participate in on-call rotations and respond to production incidents requiring deep technical troubleshooting.

What you’ll bring

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related discipline.
• 5-8 + years of professional software engineering experience, with significant time building high-performance distributed systems.
• Strong Java proficiency, including solid understanding of concurrency, memory management, JVM behavior, and performance optimization.
• Understanding of network protocols and APIs, with experience implementing REST and WebSocket APIs.
• FIX protocol experience.
• Experience building scalable and HA systems that handle high throughput and low latency in production environments (10k+ msgs/sec, low-millisecond latencies).
• Experience building micro-services systems, Kafka and relational databases (PostgreSQL).
• Experience with derivative contracts (futures, options) and financial markets
• Experience with Low latency messaging frameworks is a strong plus.